Divided We Fall
by Starving For Attention
Summary: One phone call can flip your entire life upside down.


**Background info: This takes place sometime during Super Cool Party People, but... Logan did not get into the accident.** **I repeat, Logan _did not_ get into the accident. Told in Rory's POV. It's sad, so be warned.**

I had never been this miserable in my entire life. Ever. Not even when I slept with Dean and my mom blew up at me. No, that doesn't even come close. This has to be about a thousand times worse.

My hands are shaking violently in my lap. My cotton shirt is soaked with salty tears. My eyes are sore and bloodshot, and my face is sticky and covered in makeup that once resided on my eyes. I've been staring at the same uneven stitch in my denim jeans for God knows how long... Ever since that phone call... It seemed like ages ago, but in reality, it's probably been less than an hour.

I'm not supposed to be like this. There was nothing between us anymore. Nothing. I had made sure of that when I went to Philadelphia. But I can't help feeling like something inside me disappeared. A piece of me. A black hole has formed in my heart, where _he _used to be. All I can feel is emptiness, grief, and pain.

He's gone.

I told him we couldn't be together. I told him I loved **Logan. **I didn't want to face the music, didn't want to throw away everything I had accomplished in the past year by telling him the truth. I played it safe, and told him I loved my _boyfriend._

Liar.

I'm such a _fucking _liar.

I should have went with him. I should have went to New York. This would have never happened if I went with him. He wouldn't have needed to come to New Haven if the person he was coming to visit was already with him.

The most romantic thing that has ever happened to me, the most life changing thing that could have happened to both of us, and I turn away. I say _no. _

I **killed **him.

It's kind of funny how one moment, one event in your life, can make you reevaluate _everything. _One God damn phone call can flip your _entire _life upside down.

_I had just walked into the bedroom I shared with Logan when my cell phone started chiming. I threw my books down on my bed and fished it out of my purse, frowning when I didn't recognize the number. I walked over to the stretch of wall near the window and answered it._

"_Hello?" I asked tentatively._

"_R-rory? It's L-luke." At first I was bewildered as to why he was calling. After all, he hardly ever calls me. But then it registered how scratchy and shaky his voice was, and how exhausted he sounded._

"_Something's wrong..." I said hesitantly._

_He sighed heavily, and when he started talking, his voice shook again. "L-listen... I th-thought I should be the one to t-tell you, instead of your mom..." He took another quivering breath. "It-_it's J-jess..."

_My stomach dropped as my heart jumped into my throat. My mouth suddenly felt dry, and I swallowed hard, trying to form a coherent sentence._

"_W-what's wrong?" I said in a voice dangerously close to a whisper as tears gathered in my eyes._

"_He... he got on a plane to... to New Haven this m-morning... and the p-plane... it c-crashed. He's..." Luke swallowed, and said two little words that made my word come tumbling down._

"_He's d-dead."_

_I froze. My mouth dropped open involuntarily as the cell phone slipped form my right hand and was sent clattering to the floor. I didn't bother picking it up._

_I felt like two walls were on either side of my head, pushing, compressing. Those two words were on auto-repeat in my mind. They wouldn't stop. _

_He's _dead.

_Gone._

_I don't know how I managed to stay standing up until that point, but whatever was keeping me up wasn't there anymore. I completely broke down. I fell back against the wall behind me and slid down slowly. I pulled at my hair and squeezed my eyes shut, hoping beyond hope that it was all a dream. My tightly shut eyelids weren't doing their job of keeping me from crying, and I gave up, letting the flood of tears fall hard and fast into my lap._

I never told him.

I never revealed to him how much he meant to me. How much I loved him. To think that now I'll never get the chance to tell him how I felt- how I **feel**- it's just unbearable.

I'll never get to argue with him about Hemingway anymore. I'll never seen that cute_ smirk _anymore. I'll never hug him again... or kiss him...

Oh, and you haven't heard the most _fucked up _part of my life. Let's see now, I've slept with- no, **fucked**- Logan _and _Dean, both with who I don't- and never will- love.

But I've never been with Jess.

The one boyfriend that I could picture myself spending the rest of my life with, the _only_ one that I could say I loved without sounding like I'm defending my mistakes, hiding them behind those three significant words.

With Jess, it wouldn't have been fucking, it wouldn't have been having sex- it wouldn't even have been sleeping with him. It would have been making _love, _something I have never experienced.

And now I never will.

I need to break things off with Logan. This has gone on long enough. He had no trouble finding girls to have sex with for the few weeks we "broke up," so he should have no trouble whatsoever finding another fuck buddy.

"Ace? You home?"

Speak of the devil.

I wiped my face with the sleeve of my shirt and cleared my throat quietly, trying to sound as put-together as possible.

"Yeah," I called out, my voice still a bit scratchy. I stood up slowly and walked into the living room and saw Logan sitting on his favorite leather chair with an enormous smile on his face. He immediately stood up when I walked in, and he strode over to me, practically glowing with excitement.

It made me sick.

"Rory, it was amazing! The stunt worked out _perfectly. _We jumped out of the plane-"

My jaw clenched and my stomach twisted into knots.

"-and all the parachutes opened fine, and we landed right on the boat. Well, except Finn, who landed in the water about 20 feet _away _from the boat, but we fished him out, so that doesn't-"

"You guys are so **stupid! **_Careless!"_ I lashed out.

"Rory, we were all fine!"

"That's beside the **point! **What if you weren't all fine? What if something happened to you? Or-or Colin, or Finn? You don't even seem to _care!"_

"Rory, of course I care! But it's called the Life and Death Briga-"

"You're supposed to try to _avoid _the **death **part!"

"None of us-"

"Well you could've!" Tears started to form in my eyes. At this point, I think I was only partially talking about Logan. "You could've, and it would've been all my fault for not stopping you!"

"**Rory, **_nothing _happened! And it would _not _have been your fault! What's gotten into you? What's wrong?"

I looked away from him as I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my shirt, and stayed silent.

"What's wrong?" he repeated more forcefully.

I turned back to him and fixed him with a cold hard glare.

"I can't be with you anymore." Inconsiderate bastard.

"Wha- Rory!" he said helplessly. But I didn't care how he felt anymore. By then I already had my hand on the doorknob.

"Bye," I said unsympathetically before storming out and slamming the door behind me.

I practically flew down the stairs, all the while pulling my car keys out of my pocket. I ran outside and jumped into my car, peeling out of the driveway as fast as I could.

Tears blurred my vision as I sped down the smooth road, weaving in and out of the few cars driving alongside me. I earned myself a few honks from the other drivers, but I just ignored them as my foot pressed harder onto the gas pedal.

I flew through intersections and stop signs like there was no tomorrow. What I didn't know was that, for me, there wasn't. I didn't see the semi on my left speeding across the intersection I was in the middle of.

That day was one of the happiest days of my life, because I saw him again.

United we stand, divided we fall. That day, we both fell.

And now we've been reunited.

**R&R, please and thank you!**


End file.
